


Spirits Inhabit

by orphan_account



Category: Ghost - Mystery Skulls (Music Video), Mystery Skulls (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 11:36:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2731010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some spirits want to have a little fun with their possessed before they get to the good part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spirits Inhabit

The cave is a bust. The cave's green mist just a product of bacteria and moist temperatures, the various deaths caused by reckless kids who don't watch where they walk. There is a cliff face leading to a drop into stalagmites, deadly and sharp. Lewis bends down to look and whistles, stands back up only to almost slip in a puddle. Arthur catches him just in time, left arm tugging him away from the perilous edge.

"Thanks. Would've been awfully dumb of me to fall wouldn't it?" Lewis chuckles. The drop is high, the stalagmites too clustered around for anyone to survive. He would've been dead for sure.

Arthur shakes his head firmly, "Don't even joke about it!"

Vivi is disappointed at the lack of supernatural beings but Lewis just smiles and says, "Not every place is going to be haunted."

"I'm counting on it." Says Arthur.

As they drive away from the cave, Mystery growling at it as it passes, Arthur feels like something's changed. He can't put his finger on what, the temperature of his body, his mind a little sleepy but something…

It's probably nothing.

.

A week later and they're investigating something else, a haunted mansion that plays eerie music at all times but never seems to be inhabited. They've split, Lewis and Vivi one way and Mystery and Arthur the other. He doesn't know why but he wants so badly to rip the couple apart, to force himself into their dynamic. Maybe because while he loves Mystery, the dog doesn't really offer much protection, in fact he's as big a scaredy cat as Arthur is at times.

He doesn't think much of it, too petrified by the music that resembles something from a child's music box but darker. So what if Lewis and Vivi have spent a lot of time together lately? What if they've pushed him to the side? It's not like he spends nights replaying their laughter in his head. It's not like he doesn't toss and turn at the thought of being alone. He's fine. Everything is fine.

.

One night, a month later, he has a nightmare about the caves. He dreams of green mist and Lewis lying dead on the bottom, pierced in the chest by a pointy rock, blood dripping off his body like a faucet to land on a cold cave floor. He dreams of Vivi with purple eyes crying and crying. He dreams of Mystery as a beast, a demon, ripping off his arm.

 _It's all your fault_.

He wakes in a scream. He wakes to Lewis, alive and well and worried, shaking his shoulder. He doesn't tell anyone about the dream but lets himself be comforted back to sleep. Two hours later and he wakes from another night terror: the cave's mouth twisting evilly into a smirk, it's mist consuming him, choking him-

This time Lewis is not there to comfort him, gone back to bed and sleeping peacefully and he hates that he wasn't woken up and relieved at the same time. This wasn't Lewis' problem. He doesn't go to sleep that night but that's nothing new, he's always had the most nightmares out of the group. Except the nightmares don't stop and sometimes Arthur goes to breakfast with baggy eyes and a defeated look. Sometimes he pretends to sleep as Lewis' drives the van during the night, curled up and counting stars out the back window. Sometimes the others ask what's wrong and he smiles and says nothing while privately thinking, " _You._ _ **You're**_   _what's wrong with me."_

He's tired and grouchy and he's taking sleeping pills but it does not help.

He dreams of being left behind. Lewis and Vivi moving further in their relationship while he's stuck playing third wheel. He dreams of pushing Lewis. Out. Out of the way and into the spikes where he lays broken and bloodied. He dreams of ghosts with pink hair and orange beating hearts, a coffin opening so that whatever in it can attack him. Kill him.

Which is all wrong. Lewis isn't a ghost. He didn't push anyone off a cliff. No one's going to kill him.

_Or will they?_

He's tired and frustrated and they're doing another fucking investigation. He knows how it'll play out: Lewis and Vivi split up together, no doubt cuddling and insulting Arthur. " _Arthur_ _. Oh, what is he ever good for anyway?"_  Then  _he_  finds the ghost. Gets chased all around the mansion. Gets used as  _bait_  and then the villain gets captured, exorcised, whatever the fuck.

All he knows is he's had enough of it.

" _I'm not useless._ You're  _useless. Why can't someone else be bait?"_

He stops them right around the time Lewis says his usual, "Let's split up gang."

"I hate this." Arthur seethes, his fingers tightening into fists. "I hate being bait. I hate having to follow you around while you're all," his mouth twists and he practically spits, "fucking annoying."

"Arthur?" Vivi asks. Her eyes are wide behind her half-moon glasses and she's frowning. She goes to touch him but he shrugs her off before it can lay against ~~green~~ skin.

"I hate you. I hate both of you." Arthur's hands, which were deep in his jeans pocket, draw out, a pocket knife in his hands. He doesn't remember putting a knife in there. He tries to stop himself. What was he doing? These were his best friends! Yet, he couldn't stop himself.

He hears the dark laugh from his own vocal chords but it's a distant thing, a muffled thing, as if he were hearing from behind thick sound proof doors instead of right in front of him.

"Arthur?" asks Lewis, protectively stepping up, blocking Vivi from view. "Why are your eyes green?"

Even though he can't speak or move his body he still feels the stretch of muscles, the grin that makes its way onto his face, can still feel the vibrations as he laughs, deep and cruel and nothing like his usual nervous chuckles and high-pitched giggles.

"Arthur's not here right now."

It hurts when Mystery bites him, bites him on the palm where he holds a knife. He can feel the dogs canines elongating, can see through shades of green as his friend transforms into something he's only seen in his dreams. He remembers, quite accurately, how in his dreams Mystery transforms and bites off the arm that pushes Lewis.

_He's really going to die and there's nothing he can do about it._

Apparently the spirit or ghost or whatever that's possessing his body is connected to his nervous system because Arthur's body let's go of the knife only to punch Mystery down with the other hand. Kicking the dog and stepping on its fiery tales. Mystery tries to bite back, snarling and twisting with red eyes like a stop light but Arthur is green and he digs his heels in, listens as Mystery whimpers and snarls.

He's pushed off and lands on the ground. Lewis is on top of him, his meaty hands pinning Arthur's wrist to the grassy plains. He wants to scream, wants to say he's sorry, wants to yell "Get out of here before they get you too!" But all he ends up doing is kneeing Lewis in the stomach. The taller male grunts, holding his stomach and he wants to say, "I'm  _sorry_."

"He's possessed!" Mystery growls, breathless. "Skull Cave. He got possessed in Skull Cave."

A nightmare. Just a nightmare. He wants to pinch himself but he can't, all part of the dream.

"Possessed?" Vivi asks and instead of her usual vibrant curiosity she is a wreck of moving eyes and nervous finger fidgeting, "Since Skull Cave?"

"I had my suspicions but I didn't want to cause a rift." Mystery says which is just gold seeing as how  _he's a talking dog_ , who could  _talk this whole time_.

It's final. Arthur was going insane.

Lewis goes for him again but Arthur just kicks with surprising accuracy, he hears a crunch, feels his muscles hit something solid and then Lewis is on the ground oh so still. The spirit steps on Lewis' body as he approaches the others and Arthur has this feeling of throwing up but his body doesn't stop for shit.

"How do we get the spirit out of Arthur?" Vivi asks as she falls behind Mystery who growls, red eyes bright in the moonlight. The demon dog growls, it's tails flared out like a fan. Was he going to lose his arm now? Lewis was motionless on the ground and Arthur couldn't tell through the green but he thought that Vivi's eyes were purple. Or was that her glasses?

Mystery snarls and runs at him, his teeth bared and the spirit grins, he could feel it, grins and says, "That won't work."

And like a matador the spirit dodges, then his sights are on Vivi whose eyes are purple and who pleads mercy but it's like a dream. He tries and tries but he is stuck in his own head. Trapped in his own nightmare fueled dream and no back rubs or paper bags can get him out of it, no gentle caress with a voice or a firm shake.

No they needed something that could remove spirits.

He tries to think of all the possession type stuff Vivi's ever told him that he didn't listen to because paranormal activity was the basis of his fear. Think. Think. They've done exorcisms before; this was just exorcism from the inside.

Salt? They had some in the van. He didn't think he'd be able to get there if he tried.

Magic circles and incense? Hard to get in the woods with no physical body.

Maybe reverse psychology? Do what the spirit no doubt did to him and plant suggestions in his brain. Oh this was hard. Mantras, prayers, Arthur was never much of a religious man despite his encounters but he knew some things.

He starts praying in his head, a little prayer he remembered from childhood days spent in a cathedral too big for their little town. He repeats it as a life-line, the only thing he knows.

"Stop that!" The thing that's taken control of him says, "Stop that right now!"

He blocks out that sound, lets the muffled conversation outside his head be outside. He feels something trying to get in, the spirit no doubt, and redoubles his mantra.

"Get the salt!"

"Run!"

He closes his eyes tighter, he needs to concentrate.

He chants for he doesn't know how long. When he opens his eyes he's surrounded by salt, his vision back to its normal shades of not menacing green. Mystery still in his other form sniffs at him.

"He's safe." The not-dog says.

Vivi goes to hug him but he rears back, landing on his ass. Mystery looks at him through eyes like blood and all he can think of is Lewis. He turns to where he lasts saw him and he's still motionless.

 _Please don't be dead. Please don't be dead._  Arthur thinks as he practically crawls to Lewis' side. There's a shoe print, Arthur's shoe print muddying Lewis' sweater vest but he's alive, his breaths shallow as if something was wrong but he was alive. Arthur feels around Lewis' ribs, and conscious of protruding bone and quickened pained breaths.

"We have to get him to a hospital." Arthur says, standing shakily. They're in front of a rumored haunted house in the middle of nowhere, the sun dipping down behind grassy plains. Arthur doubts the ambulance bills will be cheap. He goes to pick up Lewis, mindful of the broken ribs but Mystery stops him.

The fox, (kitsune?) dog's - whatever Mystery is - tail glows and he wraps each tail around Lewis' chest, effectively covering his whole torso. It glows white and when Mystery retracts them, Lewis' eyes flutter open. He looks disoriented, his eyes squinting as the shadows grow in accordance to the setting sun. He looks alive.

Vivi encompasses them in a hug that they return, she smells of salt and sweat, her chest still heaving but neither of them mind. They go back to the van where Arthur says sorry as if it's his own personal missive. Lewis and Vivi reassure him, their words sincere even if their eyes are a little worried.

"If anything it's our fault for not seeing the difference. I mean we're ghost hunters. We should've seen the signs." Vivi says, her grip on the wheel a little tight. She has a frown, her brows pinched. "As the leader I should've known your nightmares weren't normal."

"Don't be so hard on yourself Vivi." Lewis says, "At least no one died right?" He smiles and Vivi relaxes, nodding to herself. Arthur does not tell them about the nightmares that seem so real in light of Mystery's true nature. Mystery who has transformed back to the dog and apologizes, with botched pronunciation around words with r and w, that he did not mean to scare them or keep the secret so long.

"I kind of knew you were more than you seemed," Vivi admits with a smile, "I thought maybe you were some small ghost dog or a familiar. Didn't know you were a inugami."

Arthur and, by the looks of it, Lewis, had no idea what an inugami was but they forgave Mystery anyway, who sat at Arthur's side nuzzling his head against the boy. The dog was harmless, Arthur reminded himself. Still he couldn't get the image of a green arm torn by long canines out of his head.

Still, Mystery saved him so he patted the dog's head, smiling when the inugami leans in to his touch. He was glad the spirit decided to linger in him and have what happened happen instead of revealing itself outright like in his dreams. Who knows what would have happened then?

**Author's Note:**

> Short little unbeta'd one shot. The ending is abrupt but i'm literally 9 minutes to deadline. So sorry.


End file.
